A House in Bloomsbury

“Suspense means hope; it means possibility and life, and all that makes life sweet. Be patient, be patient, my bonnie dear.”

Dora looked up into her friend’s face. “Were you ever as miserable as I am?” she said. Miss Bethune was thought grim by her acquaintances and there was a hardness in her, as those who knew her best were well aware; but at this question something ineffable came into her face. Her eyes filled with tears, her lips quivered with a smile. “My little child!” she said.

Dora did not ask any more. Her soul was silenced in spite of herself: and just then there arose a new interest, which is always so good a thing for everybody, especially at sixteen. “There,” she cried, in spite of herself, though she had thought she was incapable of any other thought, “is poor Mrs. Hesketh hurrying along on the other side of the street.”

They had got into a side street, along one end of which was a little row of trees.

“Oh, run and speak to her, Dora.”

Mrs. Hesketh seemed to feel that she was pursued. She quickened her step almost into a run, but she was breathless and agitated and laden with a bundle, and in no way capable of outstripping Dora. She paused with a gasp, when the girl laid a hand on her arm.

“Didn’t you hear me call you? You surely could never, never mean to run away from me?”

“Miss Dora, you were always so kind, but I didn’t know who it might be.”

“Oh, Mrs. Hesketh, you can’t know how ill my father is, or you would have wanted to ask for him. He has been ill a month, and I am not allowed to nurse him. I am only allowed to go in and peep at him twice a day. I am not allowed to speak to him, or to do anything for him, or to know–”

Dora paused, choked by the quick-coming tears.

“I am so sorry, miss. I thought as you were happy at least: but there’s nothing, nothing but trouble in this world,” cried Mrs. Hesketh, breaking into a fitful kind of crying. Her face was flushed and heated, the bundle impeding all her movements. She looked round in alarm at every step, and when she saw Miss Bethune’s tall figure approaching, uttered a faint cry. “Oh, Miss Dora, I can’t stay, and I can’t do you any good even if I could; I’m wanted so bad at home.”

“Where are you going with that big bundle? You are not fit to be carrying it about the streets,” said Miss Bethune, suddenly standing like a lion in the way.

The poor little woman leant against a tree, supporting her bundle. “Oh, please,” she said, imploring; and then, with some attempt at self-defence, “I am going nowhere but about my own business. I have got nothing but what belongs to me. Let me go.”

“You must not go any further than this spot,” said Miss Bethune. “Dora, go to the end of the road and get a cab. Whatever you would have got for that where you were going, I will give it you, and you can keep your poor bits of things. What has happened to you? Quick, tell me, while the child’s away.”

The poor young woman let her bundle fall at her feet. “My husband’s ill, and he’s lost his situation,” she said, with piteous brevity, and sobbed, leaning against the tree.

“And therefore you thought that was a fine time to run away and hide yourself among strangers, out of the reach of them that knew you? There was the doctor, and there was me. Did you think we would let harm happen to you? You poor feckless little thing!”

“The doctor! It was the doctor that lost Alfred his place,” cried the young woman angrily, drying her eyes. “Let me go—oh, let me go! I don’t want no charity,” she said.

“And what would you have got for all that?”

“Perhaps ten shillings—perhaps only six. Oh, lady, you don’t know us except just to see us on the stairs. I’m in great trouble, and he’s heartbroken, and waiting for me at ’ome. Leave me alone and let me go.”

“If you had put them away for ten shillings they would have been of no further use to you. Now, here’s ten shillings, and you’ll take these things back; but you’ll mind that they’re mine, though I give you the use of them, and you’ll promise to come to me, or to send for me, and to take no other way. What is the matter with your husband? Let him come to the doctor, and you to me.”

“Oh, never, never, to that doctor!” Mrs. Hesketh cried.

“The doctor’s a good man, and everybody’s friend, but he may have a rough tongue, I would not say. But come you to me. We’ll get him another place, and all will go well. You silly little thing, the first time trouble comes in your way, to fall into despair! Oh, this is you, Dora, with the cab. Put in the bundle. And now, here’s the money, and if you do not come to me, mind you will have broken your word.”

“Oh, ma’am! Oh, Miss Dora!” was all the poor little woman could say.

“Now, Dora,” said Miss Bethune cheerfully, “there’s something for you to do—Gilchrist and you. You’ll give an account to me of that poor thing, and if you let her slip through your fingers I’ll never forgive you. There’s something wrong. Perhaps he drinks, or perhaps he does something worse—if there’s anything worse: but whatever it is, it is your responsibility. I’m an idle, idle person; I’m good for nothing. But you’re young, and Gilchrist’s a tower of strength, and you’ll just give an account of that poor bit creature, soul and body, to me.”

CHAPTER VII

Mr. Mannering’s illness ran on and on. Week after week the anxious watchers waited for the crisis which did not come. It was evident now that the patient, who had no violence in his illness any more than in his life, was yet not to be spared a day of its furthest length. But it was allowed that he had no bad symptoms, and that the whole matter turned on the question whether his strength could be sustained. Dr. Roland, not allowed to do anything else for his friend, regulated furtively the quality and quantity of the milk, enough to sustain a large nursery, which was sent upstairs. He tested it in every scientific way, and went himself from dairy to dairy to get what was best; and Mrs. Simcox complained bitterly that he was constantly making inroads into “my kitchen” to interfere in the manufacture of the beef tea. He even did, which was against every rule of medical etiquette, stop the great Dr. Vereker on the stairs and almost insist upon a medical consultation, and to give his own opinion about the patient to this great authority, who looked him over from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot with undisguised yet bewildered contempt. Who was this man who discoursed to the great physician about the tendencies and the idiosyncrasies of the sick man, whom it was a matter of something like condescension on Dr. Vereker’s part to attend at all, and whom this little person evidently believed himself to understand better?

“If Mr. Mannering’s friends wish me to meet you in consultation, I can have, of course, no objection to satisfy them, or even to leave the further conduct of the case in your hands,” he said stiffly.

“Nothing of the kind—nothing of the kind!” cried poor Dr. Roland. “It’s only that I’ve watched the man for years. You perhaps don’t know–”

“I think,” said Dr. Vereker, “you will allow that after nearly six weeks’ attendance I ought, unless I am an ignoramus, to know all there is to know.”

“I don’t deny it for a moment. There is no practitioner in London certainly who would doubt Dr. Vereker’s knowledge. I mean his past—what he has had to bear—the things that have led up–”